Combat and morale in the North African campaign : the Eighth Army and the path to El Alamein / Jonathan Fennell.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-332) and index.

1. Morale crisis and recovery -- 2. Technology, firepower and morale -- 3. Quality of manpower and morale -- 4. Environment, provisions and morale -- 5. Welfare, education and morale -- 6. Leadership, command and morale -- 7. Training and morale -- 8. In search of a theory to explain combat morale in the desert; Conclusion.

Military professionals and theorists have long understood the relevance of morale in war. Montgomery, the victor at El Alamein, said, following the battle, that 'the more fighting I see, the more I am convinced that the big thing in war is morale'. Jonathan Fennell, in examining the North African campaign through the lens of morale, challenges conventional explanations for Allied success in one of the most important and controversial campaigns in British and Commonwealth history. He introduces new sources, notably the censorship summaries of the soldiers' mail, and an innovative methodology for assessing the impact of morale on rates of psychological breakdown, sickness, desertion and surrender. As a result he is able to show for the first time that a major morale crisis and stunning recovery decisively affected the Eighth Army's performance during the critical battles on the Gazala and El Alamein lines in 1942.

We have come through another great war and its reality is already cloaked in the mists of peace. In the course of that war we learned anew that man is supreme, that it is the soldier who fights who wins battles, that fighting means using a weapon, and that it is the heart of man which controls this use. (S. L. A. Marshall) On 20 October 1942, three days before the start of the battle of El Alamein, General Georg Stumme, in temporary command of the German and Italian Panzerarmee Afrika, informed his commanders that 'the enemy is by no means certain of victory. We must increase that uncertainty every day ... The feeling of complete moral superiority over the enemy must be awakened and fostered in every soldier, from the highest commander to the youngest man ... From this moral superiority comes coolness, confidence, self-reliance and an unshakeable will to fight. This is the secret to every victory.